185J

I finished my chorus top on Monday, then put away the Janome Jem I sewed it on (it's got a nice variety of zig-zag stitches which come in handy with knits). There was a sad, empty spot on my table which needed to be filled, so I pulled down a machine I knew worked (I watched "Rosaleen" in action before I purchased her in May 2017).

I'm jumping the April 'gun' a bit, but I didn't want to waste any time trouble-shooting. I wanted to get right to sewing again!

She's also hard-wired to the motor and the only way to turn her off is to unplug her.

I've got her plugged into an extension cord close to the table (easy to unplug after each use), but I'm going to keep an eye out for this pistachio green color in cord switches. I'm even considering asking my son if he could print one in this color on his 3D printer. I've seen some clear switches as well, so that's another option.

The bulb is another 5/8 thread, tucked up behind a magnifying glass and the lock washer that presses everything tightly together.

I've already replaced this with the LED bulb I bought for the 237, so I'll be doing some online shopping for a few more of those.

Although Rosaleen technically worked, there was some tweaking of top and bobbin tensions to undergo.

Different passes at tension adjustment.

Eventually I found the sweet spot where I can have the top tension around 5 and the bobbin behaves as well. I know it's the sweet spot, because it's nearly impossible to easily unpick a line of stitching.

The piece under the needle in the top two photos is the final Triple Treat Leader-Ender Challenge block. That's 90 blocks made--time to start sewing them up! Bonnie had posted a picture of her finish back in February, so I trimmed that to see what a 9x10 layout would look like.

Not a fan of the unfinished look--the lines going out at the top two corners. I much prefer the finished, full-diamond look of the bottom corners. To achieve that,

I'd need a 10x12 layout (I also didn't want to make a square top), meaning I'd need 30 more blocks.

To the scraps!

I'd introduced a brown floral to make the 'final' four blocks when 90 was my goal. Eighty-six of the blocks have the brown crystal fabric in the middle 4-patch (I'd hoped I could get it in all 90, but I ran out).

Still plenty of the floral to cut 28 more 1.5" squares (I already had an extra floral sewn to a white square, and I found one more brown crystal in my 1.5" stash). For the rest of the colored squares needed, I pulled a few strips from the 1.5" stash, then turned to my little bin of batik scraps. There I found a forgotten stack of oddly/poorly cut pieces (from whom?!?)

The darkest of those (there were more than shown here) were soon reduced to little squares. The other batik scraps were also reduced significantly in the making of the sixty 2.5" square & 2.5" x 4.5" rectangle units needed for the 30 additional blocks, as were several of my 6.5" novelty squares.

I was contentedly sewing through the basket of colored and white 1.5" squares this morning when I heard a soft and strange sound, followed immediately by a racing motor and a non-moving needle.

Dang it!

I'll be out of town for the next 4 days, so I'm not going to fret about this now. Besides, I've plenty of working machines at my fingertips! If I get to jonesing for some sewing in the next 24 hours, I'll either plug in the iron and press this lot, or pull out one of my on-going hand-work projects.